Astronomy

Astronomy

State of the Universe: Microwave glow powers cosmic insights

Radiation left over from the Big Bang offers researchers unprecedented cosmic understanding.

Astronomy

Supernova Outbreak: X rays signal earliest alert

Thanks to a lucky break and an overactive galaxy, astronomers report the earliest detection yet of a normal supernova—the explosive death of a massive star.

Astronomy

Web Special: Supernova Outbreak—X rays signal earliest alert

MARCH 5 — Thanks to a lucky break and an overactive galaxy, astronomers report the earliest detection yet of a normal supernova—the explosive death of a massive star. Advance article from March 8 issue.

Astronomy

Urgently Wanted—Star Counters

Through March 8, an organization known as GLOBE at Night is asking for help tallying celestial bodies in the constellation Orion. Designed as a teaching aid, this star-counting program aims to emphasize the loss-of-darkness throughout the globe, a problem which hinders ground-based astronomy. Students, families, and the general public can report their results online by […]

Astronomy

Hefty Find: Density has starring role in making stars massive

Astronomers find new insights into how massive stars form.

Astronomy

New Worlds Atlas

Keep track of the ever-expanding list of newly discovered planets orbiting distant suns at PlanetQuest 2.0, a revamped Website developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It has images, “planet system visualizations,” movies and games that simulate interstellar exploration, and even lets you install a desktop planet counter so that your computer always displays the latest […]

Astronomy

Stellar Switch: Sun not alone in making magnetic flip-flops

After years of searching, researchers have for the first time documented that a star other than the sun flips its magnetic poles.

Astronomy

Organic ring around nearby star

Researchers have found the first evidence that a dust ring around another star, the likely vestige of recent planet formation, contains complex organic molecules that could be the building blocks of life.

Astronomy

Where stars are born

Some 300 young stars, hidden in visible light, shine through the dust in a new infrared portrait of the main cloud of a nearby star-forming region called Rho Ophiuchi.

Astronomy

Going the Distance: Galaxies may hail from early universe

Using a cosmic magnifying glass to peer into the deepest reaches of space, two teams of astronomers have discovered tiny galaxies that may be among the most distant known.

Astronomy

Embracing the Dark Side

Ten years after researchers discovered that the expansion of the universe was speeding up rather than slowing down, cosmologists are still struggling to explain the astonishing finding.

Astronomy

Four’s a crowd

Astronomers have found a quartet of stars packed into a region smaller than Jupiter's orbit around the sun.